China Is Not an Expansionist Power

Evidence past and present shows China has long been inward-looking

“We should stop copying the Soviet Union.”

—Mao told the CCP Central Secretariat in 1956, before the Sino-Soviet Split

The key mistake commentators on China make is equating it with the Soviet Union. It’s misguided not only in China’s domestic policy, but in its foreign policy. Unlike Chinese domestic policy, where the U.S. and other countries have little influence, fundamentally misjudging Chinese foreign policy may invite great tragedies internationally.

The core difference between China and the U.S.S.R. in foreign policy is the former’s non-expansionism, which is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture and history. To careful observers, the evidence abounds.

The Sinocentric Foundation of the Classical Chinese State

A continental civilization, China largely reached its natural geographic limits with unification under the centralized Qin dynasty in 221 BCE. Bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the east and south, the Eurasian Steppe to the north, and the Tibetan and Yungui Plateaus to the west, China under the Han dynasty (202 BCE to 220 CE) adopted the pre-Qin Sinocentric worldview that the Chinese sovereign was the Son of Heaven, superior to all barbaric rulers outside China proper. Pre-modern Chinese national security thinking was preoccupied with internal stability and nomadic invaders. Instead of conquest or client control, China managed foreign relations via a tributary system entailing mere acknowledgment of the central position of the Chinese emperor in exchange for titles and gifts. Foreign rulers in the system were left to their own devices in foreign and domestic policy. From the Sinocentric perspective, dominating the world simply means dominating China.

What about Xinjiang and Tibet?

When Tibet and the tribes in Xinjiang were part of the tributary system under the Ming dynasty (1368 CE to 1644 CE), the final ethnic Chinese dynasty, China in keeping with precedents refrained from interference in their affairs. It all changed with the Manchu conquest of China from 1618 CE to 1683 CE. The only non-Chinese dynasty to rule China besides the Mongols, the Qing was the sole non-Mongol dynasty based in China to permanently annex Xinjiang and Tibet, after vanquishing their Mongol overlords in 1758 CE. Although the Manchu-led Qing monarchy lost its native language before its fall, they never identified as ethnic Chinese and departed from Chinese customs in major areas.

Is Modern China Different?

The tributary system was shattered by the Qing’s humiliating defeats in the Opium Wars (1839 CE to 1860 CE). At long last, China was forced to treat other countries as equals and clearly demarcate its borders. At the same time, Chinese national security thinking shifted overnight to the defense of its preexisting territory from foreign imperialism, chiefly Tsarist Russia and Imperial Japan. Historically fuzzy borders aside, especially between India and Qing Tibet and Xinjiang, China has made no new territorial claims on the Asian mainland or created a client state since the Opium Wars. On the contrary, the People’s Republic of China has always claimed a smaller territory than either the Qing or the Republic of China.

The Novelty of Maritime Disputes

Chinese claims on the Spratly, Paracel and Senkaku Islands are frequently cited as evidence of expansionism. Such a view overlooks the ambiguity of historical sovereignty over uninhabited rocks and the lack of traditional international law in the East and South China Seas. North Vietnam once accepted China’s claims before reneging, while the Philippines did not contest them until decades after the claims were announced in 1948.

Whatever the claims, since ratifying UNCLOS in 1996, China has not blocked trade flows in the South China Sea or used deadly force to challenge the other claimants’ effective control.

The Extreme Non-Interventionism of Contemporary Chinese Foreign Policy

Chinese non-expansionism has endured since the communist takeover in 1949. Even Mao, a fervent believer in worldwide revolution who harshly denounced Khrushchev for proposing peaceful coexistence with capitalism, only pushed for one major intervention, the Chinese entry into the Korean War. According to leading Korean War expert Shen Zhihua’s research, after U.S. forces crossed into North Korea, Mao was almost alone in the politburo in insisting on sending Chinese troops. Yet, China has never tried to turn North Korea into a satellite.

Upon his death in 1976, the CCP leadership was nearly unanimous in jettisoning Mao’s radicalism. In foreign affairs, it has adopted extreme non-interventionism.

· China has only one treaty ally, North Korea, a Maoist legacy.

· China has no client state.

· China has only one military base abroad, in the Horn of Africa.

· The Chinese air force has never seen action since the Korean War, when it was utterly primitive. It was held back to limit the brief border conflicts with India and Vietnam.

· China promises no first use of nuclear weapons, the only member on the U.N. Security Council to do so.

· China under the CCP never attempted to reconquer Mongolia, formerly part of the Qing and the Republic of China.

· China never attempted to invade Portuguese Macau, when Portugal was unable to mount a defense.

· China has refused to supply Russia with weapons and criticized Putin’s nuclear threats in the grinding war with Ukraine.

· The question of Taiwan poses real risks, but in opposing separatism China prioritizes appearances over substances. (The Taiwan question is complex and explored in depth on this blog here.)

Could one imagine how unstable the world would be if China emulated the foreign adventurism of Russia or Iran?

A Call for a Broader Perspective on History and Culture

Well-trained in Thucydides and nostalgic for the Concert of Europe, international relations thinkers in America are trying to apply the lessons to the rejuvenated superpower in the East. However, a balance of power framework developed based on classical Greek and modern European history is ill-suited for East Asia; far too many struggle to comprehend historical and cultural knowledge considered rudimentary in China and its neighbors. During the Cold War, Russia experts in the West were fluent in Russian history and culture. How many “China experts” today could claim the same?

As Henry Kissinger noted in 2005, “[t]he Chinese state in its present dimensions has existed substantially for 2,000 years. The Russian empire was governed by force; the Chinese empire by cultural conformity”. A purely realist analysis of China’s rise neglects its ancient Confucian foundation, in many ways the polar opposite of erstwhile Russian or Japanese expansionism. Such unique traditions profoundly shape its grand strategies still to this day.